


drowning in the night

by sunshineforthesoul



Series: blinded by the lights [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Hockey, Angst and Humor, M/M, Pining, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28515915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshineforthesoul/pseuds/sunshineforthesoul
Summary: Justin thinks back to when he’d thought the stupidest thing he’d ever done was fall in love with his best friend.It’s nothing compared to how he feels after letting Adam go.
Relationships: Adam "Holster" Birkholtz & March (Check Please!), Adam "Holster" Birkholtz/Justin "Ransom" Oluransi, Derek "Nursey" Nurse & Justin "Ransom" Oluransi
Series: blinded by the lights [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803190
Kudos: 14





	drowning in the night

**Author's Note:**

> **cw** for drinking/alcohol mention
> 
> title from “blinding lights” by the weeknd
> 
> check, please! and its characters belong to ngozi

The apartment is so quiet without Adam. 

Justin remembers one time during undergrad when Adam was sick and missed class. One of the students joked that it’d actually be quiet for once, and the whole room laughed. 

It hadn’t sat well with Justin, but he wasn’t about to get into it with them, so he just swallowed down the bitter words on his tongue, and took out his notebook. 

Adam is loud. He takes up a lot of space. But he fills that space with himself, with laughter and a lack of perception about the length of his own limbs and a hushed voice he thinks is a whisper but isn’t really, and his presence has always felt safe to Justin. Comforting, in a way that other people aren’t. 

It wasn’t until he’d been alone for a couple of weeks that he realized why that was, exactly. 

Adam’s the only one who can keep up with him. 

People always hear Adam — often before they see him — and they know Adam is a lot, but they don’t know that Justin is too, because they don’t see the anxious breakdowns and they don’t feel stress snapping all the strings inside him and they haven’t sat through the late night crying and now everything is different and he just wants Adam back.

Justin thinks back to when he’d thought the stupidest thing he’d ever done was fall in love with his best friend. 

It’s nothing compared to how he feels after letting Adam go. 

He’d accepted the feelings that accompany a breakup. He’d come to terms with the fact that there’d be empty spaces where Adam’s things used to be. 

He hadn’t accounted for what Adam would leave behind. 

Adam is a part of him — has been for years — and Justin can’t stop finding splinters of him woven into things he used to not think twice about.

His favorite pair of socks that Adam got him for his birthday. The coffee maker they’d picked out together to replace the busted up old one. The moose head mug he’d bought during one of their trips to Niagara Falls.

He can clearly remember picking it off the shelf and saying something that made Adam burst out laughing in the gift shop.

He can’t get rid of everything that has connections to Adam because all that would remain would be himself, the final living reminder of what he’d lost.

Sometimes Justin feels angry that Adam left, but it has yet to stick. He wonders if it ever will. 

He knows that when Adam walked out, he’d done so angry and sad and heartbroken, and it’s not possible that the Adam Birkholtz he knows escaped unscathed. 

It’s not difficult to imagine him sitting on a couch, staring blankly at a TV that he’s not really watching, surrounded by at least a week’s worth of laundry and dishes piling up in his sink as he quietly folds in on himself. 

Adam will let himself be swallowed by his sadness, but Justin has always tried to outrun his. 

He stays late at work, picking up extra paperwork to file, or remains until he’s the last to leave the library at school. His apartment is immaculate, not a single hair out of place — an eerie, static preservation of the day Adam left and his mind had gone blank and when he came to, he’d cleaned and tidied everything he owned. 

It barely even looks like anyone lives there anymore.

It’s Adam who made the place feel like home, who kept Justin from worrying if the bed wasn’t made right away or there were a couple of dishes in the sink.

“That’s what the dishwasher is for,” Adam had protested once. 

“But the dishwasher is full of clean dishes,” Justin had laughed. 

“We can deal with it _later,”_ Adam whined, weaving his fingers through Justin’s. “I wanna dance _now.”_

Justin rolled his eyes but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he let himself be pulled into Adam’s arms.

Sometimes when he was in a bad mood, he hated the way Adam looked at him, like he was a fragile vase that would shatter if you breathed on it too hard.

Now, there’s no other way to describe him than breakable.

There’s nowhere he can go to escape his feelings. It’s only a matter of time before they catch up to him for real, and he’s not sure he’s ready for when they do. 

He needs to get out of this apartment.

His phone buzzes.

**Derek**  
_hey man i’m going to this party tonight wanna come??? i feel like i haven’t seen you in ages_

He stares at the message for a while. Is he in any kind of condition to be going to a party? 

_No,_ is what his rational mind tells him. _It’s not going to take away the hurt._

But then he pictures another night of quietly eating dinner, crawling into bed, and spending too much time on his phone before falling asleep and that’s enough for him to answer _yes._

  


__

* * *

  


“Do you really think this is a good idea?” Adam asks for what feels like the millionth time. 

March pauses. “You don’t smile as much anymore,” she says. “You barely talk to me when we’re at work and more often than not, you look miserable. I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” Adam says as a reflex.

She bites her lip, expression softening into something that borders on being too painful to look at. “If you really don’t want to be here, we can go hang out at your place or somewhere else. I’ll just text April that we decided to stay in.”

Adam looks up at the house. Colorful lights flash inside, and he can hear the thumping of bass from the driveway. 

“It’s stupid, isn’t it,” he says quietly. 

“What?” March grips his arm. “Adam, no. Your heart’s still broken. It’s not stupid to still be hurting.” She lowers her voice. “It’s okay if you’re not ready. We can go fuck it up at the bowling alley like we used to.”

Adam smiles. “I think we’re too good. They’ll call security the second we walk through the doors.”

March laughs. “Is it weird that I think I’d enjoy the ego boost?” Adam’s smile widens. “There’s those beautiful, scary teeth.”

“My teeth are not _scary.”_

March shrugs, as if to say _sure, buddy._ “What do you want to do?”

“We can stay.”

“Are you sure?” March looks him directly in the eye. “I won’t be upset if you say no.”

Adam takes a deep breath. “I’m sure.”

“And you’re sure you want to drive later?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” A shred of doubt still lingers on her face but she doesn’t continue her questioning. “Then let’s go.”

They enter the house and Adam is immediately enveloped by the energy of the party like it’s a living, breathing thing, pulsing with the beat of extremely loud pop music. He sticks close to March. It’s been a while since he’s been out in this type of setting, and he feels strange, like he needs to dust off the part of him that used to really _live_ here, in the dark, surrounded by strangers and chaos and the endless possibilities of the night. 

March stops walking, and Adam, busy taking everything in, bumps into her.

“April!” she yells over the music.

April waves when she notices them and pushes off from the bar. “Hey March! Good to see you! Glad you could make it.” She looks up at Adam. “And you must be the infamous Adam Birkholtz.”

“That would be me,” Adam replies. “Though now I’m worried about what March has been telling you.”

March smirks. “Nothing that isn’t true.”

“Ugh, April, can I get a drink?”

April tilts her head at the bar. “Follow me.”

  


__

* * *

  


Justin walks up to the front door, debating whether he should ring the doorbell or not. Before he can make a decision, the door is thrown open and Derek stands there with a huge grin on his face.

“Yo Justin, how’ve you been?” he asks, allowing Justin to step inside. 

“Not bad,” Justin answers. “How’re you?”

“Oh, you know. Chill.” Derek snickers when Justin rolls his eyes. 

“Never change, Derek.” Justin pats him on the back. “How’d you know about this party?”

“I’m friends with April, the host.” Derek squints at Justin. “Are you drinking tonight? Can I get you a cup of jungle juice?”

Justin hesitates. It’s probably not the best idea to get super drunk tonight, especially since he’s using this as a distraction from how much he misses Adam. At the same time, he did Uber here instead of driving.

“Oh, what the hell,” Justin sighs and Derek’s face lights up.

“Sick. Don’t go too far, I’ll be right back.” 

He disappears into the mass of people, and Justin takes time to absorb his surroundings. It’s as if he’s stepped back in time to his undergrad years, nameless and faceless in a crowd of strangers, too much background noise for his voice to really matter. In a way he finds it comforting, the lack of inhibitions and anonymity that’s unique to spaces like this. It’s almost paradoxical in its familiarity, except this time, Adam isn’t by his side.

The thought causes a burst of emotions to well up in his chest, rising to form a lump in his throat. It’s made worse when the song that’s playing fades to its end and “We Don’t Talk Anymore” starts up. 

Justin closes his eyes, trying to find his balance and keep from getting swept away by the tidal wave of his longing.

_Hey, it’s going to be alright. Deep breaths, okay? Breathe with me. You’ll be okay._

His heart shatters more when it’s Adam’s voice he hears in his head, because it was always Adam, wasn’t it, that pulled him out of the depths of his own mind and now he lives in those very depths. 

“Hey, Justin!” Derek calls out, reappearing with two cups. Justin snaps back to the present. “I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to kill you but, uh, you might not want to smell it before you drink it.”

“Oh trust me,” Justin says, taking one of the cups from him. “I went to school with this guy called Shitty — it’s a long story — and if I can survive the shit he gave us, I can handle this.” He takes a sip and winces. “Wow.”

“I told you.”

Justin wrinkles his nose. “Honestly, it’s still marginally better than some of the stuff Shits made.” He cocks his head. “What are you looking for?”

“Oh, nothing I—” Derek’s voice dies in his throat when Justin twists his head around to see what he was looking at.

Justin elbows Derek. “Who’s that?”

“Um. His name’s Will.”

“Uh-huh. And how do you know this very nice looking young man?”

Derek scrunches his face up. “I hate you.” Justin’s eyebrows raise. “He was bartending at my favorite gay bar and I was trying to hit on him, but I _might_ have accidentally spilled my drink on him.”

Justin laughs at the same time he swallows and chokes on tub juice. “Classic,” he wheezes, throat burning.

“Joke’s on _you,_ I ended up getting his number anyways. _And_ he walked me home. So suck on that.”

“No, _you_ should suck on that.”

Derek rubs his forehead. “Bro believe me, I’m trying. I didn’t even know he was gonna be here tonight.”

“Hey!” A young woman yells, walking up to them. “We need one more person for pong. Do either of you want to play?”

“I’ll play,” Justin states, glancing sideways at Derek. “I know you want to go flirt.”

Derek hunches his shoulders. “One of us is actually decent at pong and it’s not me.”

Justin shakes his head, smiling. “Catch you later.” He turns to face the woman. “Lead the way.”

  


__

* * *

  


Despite Adam staying purposefully close to March, she somehow manages to slip away with April, leaving him to fend for himself. He doesn’t really blame her; once she gets a few drinks in her system, she loses her self-restraint and combined with her high energy personality, she gets restless fast. 

He drifts aimlessly around like a kid who’s lost his mom in the grocery store, thinking about how Justin would tease him for drinking a White Claw.

“You put the _white_ in White Claw,” he’d say. 

Adam’s chest aches at the thought.

Without March and April as a distraction, Adam can clearly hear “Don’t Wanna Know” playing through the speakers.

“Who the fuck is playing _Maroon Five?”_ he says under his breath. As he continues to wander around, he spots a familiar face near the door to the balcony. Relieved, he gravitates over to that side of the room. 

“Will, right?” Adam points. “You work in IT.”

“Yup.” Will ducks his head. “I recognize your voice but I’m really bad with names, sorry.” 

“All good man. I’m Adam.”

Will nods. “That’s right. We’ve spoken on the phone a few times.” 

“When your department is full of boneheads, you’re bound to fill your quota of calling IT every month.” 

“Ugh, those people exist in IT too. It’s like, how did you even get this job? But then I remember I had to instruct someone how to turn on their mouse last week and I think maybe they really are qualified. ” 

Adam lets out a huff of laughter. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you talk at once.” 

“I’m efficient,” Will deadpans. 

“I’ll be honest, it’s a little surprising to see you here though. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t seem like this is really your scene.”

To accentuate his point, Adam glances over to where a group of people have started playing _Just Dance._ In their drunken state, they are neither accurate nor coordinated and one woman ends up smacking into another. 

Will laughs. “No, actually uh, some nights I bartend downtown and one of my coworkers, Eric, was invited so he asked me if I wanted to tag along.”

“Cool, cool. Where do you bartend?” 

Will shifts his weight, his posture becoming tighter and more closed off. His face takes on a pinched look. “Um, I work at Top Shelf? You might not have heard of it—”

“I know Top Shelf! It’s really nice, I’ve been there a couple of times.”

Will’s shoulders relax. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Adam nods. “It’s been a little while though.” The memory of him excitedly tugging Justin in for karaoke night makes his breath catch in his throat. “I wonder if I should stop by.” 

“I can let you know when I’m working if you want to come while I’m there.” 

“That’d be nice.” Adam hands Will his phone to enter his phone number. Will sets his cup on the floor in between his feet and takes the phone. “Did you mix yourself a drink then?”

“Hm? Oh, no,” Will answers, still typing. “I have to drive tonight. This is just a cup of water.” He hands Adam his phone. “Did you want me to mix you a drink?” 

Adam shakes his head. “I’m the designated driver for my friend March. I don’t plan on drinking much more than this.”

“’Scuse me,” a voice behind Adam says.

Adam cranes his neck to see a man shouldering his way through the crowd around them. He sidles up to Will, pressing in close to him.

“Derek,” Will says, face bright when Derek leans in. “This is Adam. He works on the floor above me.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Derek says. Adam smiles politely. “Sorry to cut in, do you mind if I steal Will away to dance?” 

Will looks to Adam, the question reflected in his eyes. Adam thinks “Payphone” — _seriously who likes Maroon 5 that much?_ — is kind of a weird song to dance to, but he keeps his expression cordial. 

“Go ahead,” Adam says. “Have fun and don’t forget to use protection!” 

Will flips him off behind Derek’s back as Derek drags him away. 

Adam stands with his back against the wall, idly sipping at his White Claw. He’d thought that maybe this would be enough to warm the numbness that had taken up residence in his chest, but as he stands at the edge of the room watching the people around him, the weight of his loneliness burrows itself into his heart

He sighs and pushes off the wall.

Hopefully the people stumbling around in a poor display of Just Dancing will let him play.

  


__

* * *

  


Justin slips out onto the balcony, relishing in the relative quiet and faint chill of the night air against his warm skin. His head is fuzzy around the edges, his thoughts balling together into a knot. 

He grips his fourth — or maybe it’s his fifth? — cup of jungle juice, lightly crushing the red plastic. He has no idea approximately how long he’s been here, but the night seems to stretch out long before him. 

The light from above the balcony door doesn’t quite reach to the end of the yard, and the longer Justin’s out here, the more unsettled by the darkness staring back at him he becomes.

He reenters the house, a small shudder running through his body as he crosses the threshold. 

From here, he can see in the reflection of the TV of the mirror hanging on the wall. Because of its angle, he can’t see much else besides the screen broadcasting the “It’s Raining Men” dance from _Just Dance 2._

_That was always Adam’s favorite._

Justin’s feet start carrying him vaguely in that direction, though his mind can’t really comprehend why.

“Justin?” His name, being called from somewhere else in the house. He freezes. “Justin. Justin!”

Someone grabs onto his arm and he jumps. He turns his head to find the guy Derek was making eyes at earlier — Will, he recalls.

“Uh...” Justin glances at his bicep, where Will has a firm hold on him.

Will lets go like he’s dropping a hot iron. “Sorry I just— I need your help with Derek.”

Justin frowns. “Where is he?”

Will leads him through the house and out the front door. Derek’s standing in a tree in the front yard, holding onto the trunk for dear life even though he’s no more than seven feet off the ground. 

“I tried to get him down, but he insisted he needed you to come get him down,” Will explains. “He kept saying ‘salmon shorts, white baseball cap’.”

Justin chuckles. “Thank you for coming to find me. I got him.” He walks over to the tree. “Hey Derek.”

Derek looks down at Justin. “Justin!” he exclaims, the fog in his eyes clearing. “Thank fucking God you’re here!”

“Hi buddy. Do you need help getting down?”

Derek pushes his lower lip out into a pout. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Justin turns around. “How about a piggyback ride—”

“Hell yeah!”

“—but be gentle—” Justin staggers, nearly falling face first into the grass, as Derek jumps onto his back. Will reaches out to steady them. “Thanks.”

Derek slowly slides off Justin’s back, inching his way down until his feet touch the ground. 

“I’ve had too much to drink tonight so I can’t drive, but you should probably call him an Uber or something,” Justin says. 

“Actually, I haven’t been drinking,” Will says. “I could take him home.” 

Justin narrows his eyes at Will. “Are you sure?” 

Will’s eyes widen. “I’m not trying to— I just want to make sure he gets home safely.” 

“Do you know where he lives?” 

“I’ve, uh, I’ve been there before. It’s on my way anyways.”

“Derek? Do you want Will to drive you home?”

Derek hooks his arm around Justin’s neck. “Sure, he’s good at finding you. He helped me get home from Top Shelf once. I trust him.” 

Justin swallows a laugh. “That’s a compelling argument.” He levels his gaze with Will’s. “Are you sure you’re up to this?” 

Will nods. “Yeah I’ve dealt with a lot worse.” He steps in closer to Justin. “Derek, ready to go home?” 

Derek shifts to leaning on Will, tucking his face into his neck. “Yeah,” he mumbles.

“Anyways, I’ll get out of your hair,” Will says to Justin. “Have a good night.”

“You too. Hey.” Will pauses. “Would you text me once Derek’s settled in? He knows my number by heart so you can just ask him for it.” 

“Of course.” 

Justin watches them get into Will’s car and drive away. He turns back to the house, wondering if it’d be a bad idea to do a couple of shots.

  


__

* * *

  


“New High Score!” flashes on screen. 

“Beat that motherfuckers,” Adam says under his breath. He wipes his sweaty forehead and sets his Wii remote on the TV stand. 

“Oh sick, I got a new high score?” April grins, appearing out of nowhere, much more disheveled than when he’d last seen her. 

Adam makes a face at her. “You’re lucky I was too lazy to add a new name. Where were you anyways?” 

“Oh, you know.” April waves a hand flippantly. “It’s not that important.” 

Adam whips his head up. “‘The One That Got Away’? Hang on — who the fuck is on the aux?”

April stands on her toes, scanning the room. “Oh. It’s Johnson,” she says flatly. 

“Does he normally play breakup songs at parties?”

April shakes her head. “Knowing him though, if you asked him about it he’d say something weird like, ‘The attention given to specific songs serves to emphasize the narrative tone and tension’ or some shit like that.”

“Huh.” 

A loud crash from somewhere deeper in the house steals April’s attention. 

“What the fuck,” she says, hurrying to attend to whatever disaster’s going on elsewhere. 

“Adam Birkholtz!” 

Adam spins around. March is striding toward him. Right before she reaches him, she trips over nothing and knocks right into him. 

“Alright March. I think this is a sign that we should call it a night.” 

“Aww.” March puffs out her cheeks. “Boo.” 

“You’ll thank me in the morning.” Adam jerks his head in the direction of the door. “Let’s go.” 

Adam assists March in digging through the pile of shoes by the front door to find hers. They step outside, and Adam clicks the lock button on his car keys to locate his car. 

“This way,” he tells March.

She links her arm through his and they walk down the driveway and left down the street. Well, Adam walks. March is having a hard time keeping her balance, and any unevenness in the sidewalk sends her pitching forward. 

“Hey Adam, guess what?” March says. 

“What?”

“I kissed April.” 

Adam suppresses his smile. “Did you.” 

March giggles. “Yeah. We were making out in her room.”

“Is that where you two disappeared to?”

March’s subsequent laughter answers his question. 

“You wanna know what I did tonight?”

March nods, eyes bright. “Tell me.”

“I played Just Dance,” Adam leans in and stage whispers in her ear, “and I won.”

“Oh shit!” March gasps. “That’s awesome. I’m so happy for you!”

“Well you know,” Adam says, shrugging like it’s no big deal. “It’s pretty easy when everyone around you wouldn’t pass the straight line test.” He opens the passenger side door and goes around to get in behind the wheel.

March’s giggles grow into actual laughter. “Oh Adam, you’re so funny,” she says, climbing into the passenger seat. “Have you always been this funny?” 

“Have I?”

“I think so.” 

“I’m flattered.” 

She dozes off while he drives, mostly asleep by the time he reaches her place. 

“March,” he says gently. 

“Hm?” she replies. Her eyes remain closed. 

“We’re here.” 

Her eyes flutter open, and she inhales deeply. “Thanks for driving,” she mumbles, stretching. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Adam chuckles. “Stay hydrated.” 

“Hydrate or diedrate, bitch,” she says on reflex. “Did you have fun tonight?”

“Yeah,” he lies.

“Good.” She unbuckles and leans over to plant a wet kiss on his cheek, then slides out of the car.

Adam waits, watching to make sure she gets inside. It takes her a few tries to get her door unlocked, but she manages to get it open. She turns to wave at him before shutting her door. 

Adam lingers for a few moments more, thinking about what he should do now. He’s not as tired as he should be given the hour, the residual energy of the party seeping into his bones. All that waits for him if he goes back to his apartment is a dark, empty room. At least the night, though dark and empty itself, doesn’t cage him in the same way those four walls will. 

He starts the car and drives.

  


__

* * *

  


Justin’s phone buzzes. 

_Your Uber is on the way. ETA: 5~7 minutes._

He figures it’ll take him at least a few minutes to gather his belongings and wrestles his way to the front door. 

The crowd’s been gradually thinning out, so finding his shoes isn’t as much of a monumental task as he’d thought it would be. He pats his pockets, checking for his keys and phone. Satisfied, he leaves the house.

He hangs out in the yard, leaning on the tree where Derek had gotten himself stuck, and scrolls through his phone. 

“Whoa!” he hears a woman shout, followed by lively laughter. 

Justin glances up. A chill washes through his body like someone’s just dumped a bucket of ice down the back of his shirt.

A man is walking with a tall woman who keeps stumbling over bumps in the sidewalk, her arm linked with his. His hair shines golden under the streetlight. He says something that makes her laugh loudly and Justin watches him gently tuck a strand of hair behind her ear as they continue down the sidewalk. 

Justin considers that maybe Adam’s actually found someone who can keep up with him and that he should be happy, but instead it feels like he’s swallowing poison.

Something sour in his stomach sharpens into jealousy.

 _That should be us,_ he thinks.

It takes a hard pain in his hand for him to realize he’s clenching his keys way too hard. He takes a deep breath, inflates his lungs and pushes air out, and loosens his grip.

The man is tall enough that it _could_ be Adam, but his back is facing Justin and he’s too far away to definitively identify him. It’s not fair of Justin to make that assumption.

He looks back at his screen to watch the little model of his Uber’s car driving around the neighborhood. Once the car turns onto the street the house is on, Justin pockets his phone and moves to stand on the sidewalk.

The car pulls up and the passenger window rolls down. 

“Justin Oluransi?” the driver says. 

“That’s me.” Justin plops down in the back and tells the driver his address. 

Thankfully the driver isn’t the talkative type because all Justin wants to do is gaze out the window and try to ignore the dull throbbing in his head. He closes his eyes to block out the flare of oncoming cars’ headlights. 

Finally, the car slows to a stop. 

“Thank you,” Justin says, handing the driver a tip and exiting the car.

He goes inside and heads straight for the kitchen. Without turning any of the lights on, he downs a big glass of water. A small amount of light from outside leaks in through the window, creating an illuminated square on the floor. 

Justin moves in front of the window, staring at the outline of his shadow inside the square. 

A year ago he’d stood here with Adam, blissfully in love, with their whole world expanding out from them. 

A couple of months ago, Adam had stormed out after they’d both said things they didn’t really mean and would regret later, when the rain had washed away their anger. 

Now, here he is, trapped on one side of a chasm that widened with every step Adam took away from him.

He refills his glass, then trudges upstairs and into his room. He sets the glass of water on his nightstand and tosses his hat onto the floor, before collapsing onto his bed. 

His phone rings with an incoming call from an unknown number. 

“Hello?” he says when he answers.

“Hi, sorry to bother you. It’s Will,” Will says. “When I asked Derek for your number, he asked if I could call you so he could say goodnight. Hey, Derek, Justin’s on the phone.”

“Justin, I told Will to call you so I could say goodnight,” Derek says, his words sounding heavy. 

“I heard,” Justin says around a laugh.

“Okay I’m gonna hang up now—”

“No wait!” Will interjects. “Can I have my phone back?”

“What’s the magic word?”

Wil sighs. “Please?”

“See, Justin, I told you Will was a nice guy. Anyways bye!” Derek makes kissing noises into the phone and then a door slams shut in the background.

“Sorry about that, again,” Will says. Justin hears his keys jingling and the sound of his car unlocking. “He’s home now.”

“It’s all good. Thank you.”

“No problem. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Justin sets his phone on his nightstand, next to his glass of water, and lies down. He’s asleep the second his head hits the pillow.

When he wakes up, his head is full of static and everything past when he got Derek out of the tree is blurry, but he’s filled with a hollow sadness and the feeling that he’s missed something important.

  


__

* * *

  


Adam drives with the windows down and no particular destination or direction in mind. He drives until the distance between buildings grows and he no longer recognizes any of his surroundings. Any thoughts he’s had, he’s released into the wind, concentrated only on operating the vehicle.

He doesn’t stop until he’s in the middle of nowhere, a lone passenger in a solitary car that’s been chewed up and swallowed by the night. At that point, he’s forced to pull over and get gas.

After that, he turns around and heads home. 

The sun begins to creep above the horizon, just enough to turn the bottom of the sky orange. The stars shining higher up fade out as they are slowly overtaken by dawn. 

By the time he parks his car he’s thoroughly drained, like the darkness took everything inside him as it dissolved. He blinks and he’s in his room. 

He sinks down onto his bed, resting his elbows on his knees as his mind finally catches up with him. Exhaustion permeates every inch of his body, the party feeling as though it happened an eternity ago.

Sunlight pokes through his blinds, yellow slivers of light shining on the wall and floor. 

Adam can’t exactly say he feels _better,_ necessarily, but for now, the hurt in his heart has surrendered to his weariness. 

He crawls under the blankets and plummets into a deep, dreamless slumber.

**Author's Note:**

> other songs on johnson’s epic post-breakup party playlist include “talia” (king princess), “youngblood” (5sos) and “out like a light” (the honeysticks)
> 
> this series is done now so that’s pretty exciting! i love that i wrote the series completely out of order — part 3 was first, part 1 was second, and part 2 was last. anyways sorry for the angst i hope it hurt >:)
> 
> (also i drew inspiration from the party from the “last friday night” music video for this fic lmao.)
> 
> comments/kudos/bookmarks are always appreciated! :)
> 
> come say hi to me on tumblr! [@omgdexnursey](https://omgdexnursey.tumblr.com/)


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